Levels of psychology

There are three main levels of analysis within psychology: biological influences, psychological influences and social-cultural influences. From these three levels of analysis there are 7 current perspectives used to study human behavior. This essay will define each perspective and discuss how each perspective could be used to investigate love.

The Neuroscience perspective of psychology focuses on “how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences” (Myers pg 11). Researches from this perspective would focus on what brain functions and processes results in emotions like love. How do neurotransmitters affect a person’s feelings of love at a given moment and over a long period of time. “Each neurotransmitter travels a designated path in the brain and has a particular effect on behavior and emotions” (Myers pg 61). To study the effect of neurotransmitters on the emotion of love researchers could monitor test subjects’ brain while introducing them to stimuli that would produce feelings of love. During the test subjects could be exposed to pictures of family members and romantic partners. At the end of the experiment researchers would be able to analyze the difference in brain functions when exposed to the pictures and when not exposed to the pictures.

The Evolutionary perspective of psychology focuses on “how the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one’s genes” (Myers pg 11). From this perspective researchers would try to answer the questions like: 1) How has evolution shaped humans’ ability to love? 2) From an evolutionary perspective why do humans feel emotions of love? Researchers may conclude humans developed emotions like love to help with the mating process. Humans’ ability to love helps them find a mate and therefore further the species. It also helps create stronger family units which may be important for survival. Researches could investigate on whether natural selection promoted the ability to love in...

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...issues of intrusion.
To conclude from the above argument, indeed ethics are important in research for they build mutual trust and respect between the participants and the researcher, they serve normal goals and objectives of the research, and they protect the participants from psychological and physical harm. Ethics are important for both the researcher and the participant at a larger degree, although there are some problems associated with the use of ethics as some ethics will disturb the yielding of valid and reliable research results.
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Koocher, GP and Keith-Spiegel, P (1998) Ethics in Psychology New York: Oxford University Press
Sales, B.D., & Folkman, S. (Eds.). (2000). Ethics in research with human participants. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
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...﻿Research Methods of Psychology
Psychological Research is conducted to obtain factual information about human behavior and mental processes to find out the underlying cause and effect relationship. Here we will discuss two out of five methods of conducting Psychological Research named:
1. Case History Method
2. Survey Method
1. CASE HISTORY/ CASE STUDY/ CLINICAL METHOD
Definition:
A case study is an in-depth study of one person. Much of Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies.
Explanation:
It is sometimes very helpful to study one person (or a very small group of people) in great depth to learn as much information as possible. This method is particularly useful in studying rare disorders or circumstances.
Examples:
A. Studying the life history of a man who acquired schizophrenia at the age of 20.
B. Following one child from conception to adulthood to examine this lifespan development.
Types of Case Studies:
Explanatory: Used to do causal investigations.
Exploratory: A case study that is sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses.
Descriptive: Involves starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
Intrinsic: A type of case study in which the researcher has a personal interest in the case....

...Section One – 1
When psychology first began to become a science in 1860, it was more of a field of philosophy than an actual medical study. It dealt with a more abstract concept than other medical fields; the human body is something concrete that you can physically look at and study whereas, at the time, you could not physically see the mind.
In Ancient Greece thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato could only come up with theories as to how the mind works. Plato believed that some knowledge is innate while Aristotle believed that the ability to learn depended on experience, however neither were able to prove their theories with concrete evidence. As time went on and psychology became more widely known, more theoretical approaches to psychology were introduced. Freud established the psychoanalytical theory, which emphasized the importance of the unconscious and how it shaped how humans behave. While Freud did use psychoanalysis to attempt to bring unconscious thoughts and feelings to conscious awareness, it was still far from valid scientific evidence.
In the 20th century, behaviorism was introduced. Behaviorism encouraged psychologists should limit their studies to behavior that was objectively observable. The introduction of behaviorism advanced psychology as a field of scientific study because it now focused on what people do rather than their own personal experiences. Studying behavior rather than gave...

...where there is no random allocation to conditions and no direct manipulation of the independent variable.
Quasi also know Natural experiments are not classed as true experiments. A quasi/natural experiment is when the independent variable is not manipulated by the researcher but is manipulated naturally. In appropriate experiment subjects are delegated to the conditions of the experiment via random assignment; but this not always practical or possible because of ethical reason. During a quasi experiment a researcher will take advantage of already existing variables e.g. such as gender, age, race or a variables that the researcher has have no control over e.g. personality traits or field of work. Quasi experiments are very common in psychology because ethically and practical design that can be used.
Berkowitz 1970 – effects of witnessing violence
Advantages:
Situations in which it would be ethically unacceptable to manipulate the independent variable.
Less chance of demand characteristics or experimenter bias interfering.
It is ethical as the IV would occur naturally.
Participants act naturally and won’t realise what’s being studied so they can’t develop demand characteristics.
Instead of randomization, matching is used.
Can be useful in generating results for general trends when pre-selection and randomization is difficult.
Because there is no pre-selection, less time and resources are needed.
Minimises threats to external validity...

...﻿Psychology
Chapter One
Psychology started as a speculation and has evolved into science over years. . It was born as an independent discipline. The discovery began in 1870 by a small number of scholars. The founders are disciplines of philosophy and physiology which share an interest in the mysteries of the mind. In 1832- 1920 Wilhelm Wundt changed the view, he created the first laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig Germany. He mounted a campaign to make psychology and independent discipline rather then a stepchild of philosophy or physiology. Wundt argued that psychology should be the scientific study of
consciousness- the awareness of immediate experience. One of Wundt student G. Stanley Hall (1864- 1924) played a big part as one of the contributor in psychology in North American in the late 19th century. In 1892 he main person involved and helped with the creation of the American Psychological Association better know as (APA) he was also elected the first president.
Structuralism relies on the notion that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related. Introspection is the careful systematic self-observation of one’s own conscious experience. It requires training to make the subject or the person being studied more objective and more aware. Functionalism is based on the theory that psychology...

...facts, we underpin the idea that mental strength, just like physical strength can be measured independent of one's background or life circumstances and what counts as intellectual 'strength' is universal.
In 1869 “Francis Galton” through his book 'Hereditary Genius' raised interest in the study of mental abilities as they have to do with hereditary and eugenics. Identifying the inaccuracy in measuring intelligence, Galton decided to research based on experiencing, travelling, interacting and understanding other cultures from different groups and part of the world. Galton's estimation showed how ancient Attic greeks had been the people with the highest average intelligence, followed by contemporary Englishmen, with black Africans at a lower level and Australian Aborigines lower. For some reason he did no study the jews but stated that they appear to be rich in families of high intellectual breeds.
Even as close as he would have gotten to understanding different groups, he still did not identify how cultural differences and how people rate intelligence affects the measurement. The research only showed achievements but did not measure those achievements based on “Distance” therefore creating an unfair analysis and estimations.
Intelligence can never be measured accurately but can be selected based on criteria and preference therefore Immediately rendering some groups of parts of the world as irrelevant based on relevance of their achievements in certain...

...﻿Chapter 11 Questions: Theories of Cognitive Development
1. What does it mean that we need to hybridize in terms of understanding cognitive development?
Taking into consideration the growing magnitude of insights from cognitive neuroscience, the future of cognitive developmental hypothesizing seems likely to follow a ‘hybrid route’. Respectively, current theories of cognitive development need to recognize the significance of knowledge construction, emphasized by Piaget, along with the social world, mainly focused on by Vygotsky. Furthermore, modern theories have to be consistent with biological limitations regarding how the brain really learns.
3. How would Piaget explain the 30 month old child who sits in his/her high chair and repeatedly drops and watches Cheerios fall to the floor?
Piaget would explain this as the third sensory-motor stage which he identified as secondary circular reactions. Likewise, secondary repetitive behaviors involve the outside world. For instance, a child may seek to recreate interesting events in their surrounding environment, such as dropping an object. Thus, the circular reaction would be to repeatedly drop the object without getting bored. In this particular case, the repeatedly dropped object would be Cheerios.
5. What did Piaget mean by the interiorization of action? What would Vygotsky say it means?
According to Piaget, the interiorization of action would refer to the final stage of sensory-motor cognition in which the child...

...﻿Aidan Mohammed
Psychology
According to the article, “What is Psychology?” by Kendra Cherry, Psychology is simply defined as the study of human mind and behavior. Psychology is a very controversial topic because it relates to many field of study and also often used in daily life. In addition, psychology can be divided into many categories and areas. Also, psychology has many major theories and these theories represent the different schools of thought. The schools of thought includes structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism, and cognitivism. Each of these schools has different roles. Structuralism was the first school of thought in psychology but it’s not considered to be the most dominant school of thought today. The most dominant school of thought today is humanism or humanistic psychology. Humanism is the psychological view of human beings' thoughts, behavior and their uniqueness. Furthermore, humanistic psychology helped people to be happy and reach their full potential. Also, it is very commonly used today and made a positive impact on other areas of psychology.
Based on the article, “Why We Lie” by Dan Ariely, the two opposing motivations that drive everyone decisions whether how much we cheat or lie are obviously when people acts to be “good” in the society to get whatever they want...